1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention relate to the field of partitioning technology, and more specifically, to device drivers in a partitioned environment.
2. Description of Related Art
In partitioned environment (e.g., a virtualized environment), many instances of guest operating environments may be created. These guest environments or partitions may run independently of each other. Typically, a software layer, such as a hypervisor, runs directly on the system hardware and exposes the virtual platform to the guest partitions. Under this scheme, devices or hardware elements may be exposed to the guest partitions as models having some generic characteristics.
The software layer abstracts the underlying device features into a generic model that may be common to similar devices. One problem with this abstraction is that the particular or unique features of a device may not be fully utilized. In many applications, it may be desirable to access the device specific functionalities to utilize the value-added or unique features offered by the device.